Given Americans' heightened concerns over cybersecurity, banks should reconsider the notion of promoting card use for every transaction, according to Douglas Ceto of CetoLogic.
Social media won't drive profits until banks figure out how to direct traffic to their blog and provide the kind of emotional content that people like to share, writes John Siracusa.
The Heartbleed bug alerted banks to their own vulnerabilities and made them realize that they have heightened responsibilities toward customers when it comes to communicating security concerns, according to Joram Borenstein of NICE Actimize.
While bankers' reputation as the unquestioned authorities on financial services may be changing, the importance of face-to-face interactions has not lessened, according to contributor Dave Martin.
Payments startups may be fast and smart, but banks have compliance know-how, an established customer base and physical branches that will help them hook customers on new products.
Like the Internet of the 1980s, today's payment systems are a mishmash of disparate, closed networks that cannot communicate with one another effectively. Distributed ledger technologies can solve this problem.
AirbnbÂ's recent rebranding featured personal narratives from employees and customers as well as stories that emphasized the companyÂ's local roots. Banks can apply these lessons to their own marketing and product development, according to consultant Sam Maule.
Startups that focus on person-to-person payments or peer-to-peer lending may well be the future heavyweights of the financial services industry. Banks must either band together to create viable alternatives or risk losing relevance.
Banks that want to stay ahead of the digital curve should consider hub-and-spoke branch models, products that blend digital and physical services and innovation labs that allow creative thinkers to experiment Â-- and even to fail.
Push notifications offer banks and credit card issuers a unique way to communicate with a generation that's skeptical of the financial industry but fond of technology and hungry for deals.
